Disclaimer: I don't own APH, but I own this plot.

A/N: okay, this isn't too bad as for me to crop half of it, but you can still find it on tumblr. my URL is meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeg(dot)tumblr, you can find my fics under the tag "megan's stuff".

Warnings: angst galore, horror, constant suicides, messed-up romance, dubcon, necrophilia, character death, and all sorts of other social no-no's.

Stitches

A gun cocks.

"What are you doing?"

"England. Arthur. Don't leave me again."

The drawn curtains blot out any light.

Arthur sobs.

Alfred holds him tight.

"Darling, aren't you cold?"

A harsh Bronx accent echoes through the silent bathroom as the United States of America steps gingerly over the iced floor. England doesn't respond, but it's not like Alfred expected him to. The water he sits in was probably warm at some point - a few hours ago, perhaps - but a thin layer of frost on the top reveals the temperature and the reddish tinge belies the slit throat. The curtains dance with a particularly strong gust from the open French doors, and Alfred moves to avoid the hail.

England might as well be sleeping - perfectly pale, eyes closed, not a hair out of place. Except for the fact that his lips are blue and he's obviously dead.

The white towel in Alfred's hands quickly turns a weak red as he wraps it around the corpse, ice caked on the surface of the water cracking loudly and parting like little icebergs. Alfred drains the icy water and carries England's body to the counter, leaving a breadcrumb trail of blood as he lays him down. Reaching for the thread and needle from the embroidery England so loves, he sews England's throat up, humming softly under his breath.

Two minutes later, Alfred closes the window, turns off the taps, and sets England back in the tub. He sits on the side and watches his not-quite-lover for hours, changing the water twice and sighing sadly as England sputters back into life, twitching and writhing in pain as his icy blood melts.

"Why do you do this to me?"

England's cry of despair as green eyes meet blue drowns out Alfred's words.

England heals quickly, a perk of his nationhood. Perhaps three hours later, he sips sourly from a china teacup of Earl Grey prepared by Alfred; the American doubts not how good the heat must feel against England's throat.

"I do believe that that was your most horrible death yet," Alfred states by way of conversation. His accent has since changed - now, he speaks with a smooth North Carolina lilt far too gentle for his macabre words. He sits across the table from England, an untouched cup of coffee before him, and his glimmering eyes bore holes into Arthur's face. "Worse even than the one with the chainsaw, though that one was harder to clean up." Alfred frowns. "I still don't know how you got ahold of that thing..."

England scowls as Alfred reaches across the table to stroke the back of his pale hand.

"I love you so much, but you don't believe me."

As England turns his face to the window, Alfred hears the words he doesn't voice -

I know you love me, and that's why I can't stand it -

- and his frown deepens, because he knows that England would give the world just to see that frog again.

A week later, Alfred returns to find his love sitting at the same kitchen table, blood spatters on the ceiling and his face half-gone. It looks like someone threw a cherry pie at his head - everything just oozes out onto the formerly-white tablecloth. His back is straight and Alfred can't restrain the soft smile as he notices how orderly England acts, even when blowing his face off. The shotgun lays in a pool of blood on the floor.

"You know, one day I won't be able to stitch you back together."

The topic arises suddenly. Arthur sits nestled in Alfred's lap, green eyes focused quite intently on the book in his hands even as Alfred breathes slow and deep against his neck. Situations like this - quiet, gentle, at least a little loving - are few and far between, mostly due to England's awful habit of being dead whenever Alfred's in a good mood. First names are used mutually for an hour or two, but the illusion breaks as soon as Arthur accesses a potentially murderous household item; Alfred counts down the seconds, and he approximates three minutes and eighteen seconds more of peace.

Arthur blinks and swallows, Adam's apple bobbing against Alfred's lips.

"I know."

The stench of burned flesh bleeds outside, and Alfred enters briskly. He removes his coat and shoes and sets them in the proper places, before grabbing the paper and walking into the den. "Hello to you too," he greets cheerfully as he passes England's charred body, sprawled over the large stone fireplace with a plastic bag melted into the burnt remains of his face. "At least you stayed off the carpet this time, darling."

Occasionally France visits. He drops by unexpectedly, almost as though he tries to surprise Alfred - who had coincidentally locked England in the basement that morning. The thick walls silence England, but France's shouts and accusations echo down. Alfred hates to admit it, but England misses France so much that it hurts, and screams for him with a hoarse throat. Thankfully, France never hears, and England listens to him leave time after time, waiting for Alfred to stride down the stairs with jealous eyes and an expression stonier than the cellar floor. The teartracks on his cheeks glow in the upstairs light and Alfred finds himself too enraged to care.

Poisoning, in Alfred's mind, is one of the worst ways to go. Knowing that something's ripping you apart from the inside but not how much longer you have to endure the pain...they aren't things America particularly wants to face again. But England, ever persistent, has injected bleach into his wrists this time - enough to empty a whole gallon of Clorox. Several empty syringes lay around his fingers, and the ends of England's fingers are burned; the bleach must have eaten through the needles.

Alfred sighs and carries England's body to the bathroom, stringing him upside down and slitting the wrists. He doesn't even know if this method of draining the bleach will work, but it's worth a shot. It's not like he can call a doctor, anyway.

Alfred is extremely resourceful when it comes to saving him, England bitterly decides as he opens his eyes yet again. Alfred sleeps softly next to him, bent over the bed with his head in England's lap and his glasses on the table. And despite all this, Alfred is first and foremost a troubled young man: England sighs and brushes bangs out of America's eyes, and can't keep the ends of his lips from tilting up as Alfred unconsciously presses up against his hand.

"What a mess you made this time," Alfred proclaims as he walks into the basement. Blood pools around England's corpse, staining his light hair and falling from wrists chaffed down to the bone from raw contact to metal chains. "I thought putting you in here would be better...you might not get any ideas."

A manic grin pulls at the American's lips as he presses two fingers to England's unresponsive jugular. He leans in and kisses England's eyelids, nose, cheekbones, jaw, but not his lips as he pulls England's slacks, coppery and stiff with rusty liquid, off. He hooks England's legs over his shoulders and forces himself inside.

"Even when you're dead, baby," he pants into the crook of England's throat, "you're great."

England's wrists take a surprisingly long time to heal, and Alfred worries. But he ties the other to the bed and takes him roughly, relishing in the reluctant groans and screams and sobs for more that only he can give, hoping to distract England from the bandages that remain around his wrists for a full six hours.

It doesn't work, and the anxiety in Alfred's stomach twists into a knot.

Perhaps Alfred's stomach represents the Boy Scouts - the anxiety has since grown into what might possibly be the world's biggest ball of string, and when he returns home one day, he fears the worst.

As soon as he enters, he walks straight in to see England watching TV, sitting in a normal-looking and normal-smelling house. Relieved tears threaten to overflow, but then he wraps his arms around Arthur from behind and feels cold skin. Then he notices the broken glass on the floor by the sink, and the empty pill bottle on the table. He sits silently next to Arthur's glassy-eyed body and watch the news.

Canada doesn't yell. He simply doesn't - even when he's furious, his voice remains rather quiet.

He screams today, and Arthur listens carefully from his spot in the basement. Alfred does not shout in response, and Arthur has no idea what his captor says in response to Canada's enraged questions.

"Where is he?"

In his mind's eye, Arthur envisions the fake innocence on Alfred's face. The front door slams, and barely five or six minutes later, Alfred stomps downstairs.

"Why do they want to take you from me?" he hisses, pinning Arthur's wrists to the cold floor. "You don't want to leave me, do you?"

Alfred hears the nonverbal yes and slaps him across the cheek.

And England takes all that Alfred has to give. He cries for more, and wonders when he became so sick.

The clouds look full to bursting, but rain refuses to spill. Claps of thunder echo far off in the distance. Alfred's eyes slide open at approximately 5:40; he turns to England, who sleeps silently next to him, and holds him close for the better part of an hour.

That afternoon, France storms his office.

"Putain qu'est-ce que tu as fait, salaud?" he roars, eyes wide and enraged and brimming with tears. "Où est-il?" He holds a newspaper crumpled in his clenched fist, but a bold and visible bold headline announces the civil unrest in Britain. Alfred knows it stems from tension over the uncharacteristically awful weather and the eventual dissolution of Parliament, and he feels hotness on his face but doesn't register it as tears.

He doesn't register his manic laughter until France sinks to his knees, face buried in his hands as he mourns the loss of a lover. Canada stands there as well, lips twisted into an unreadable scowl. For Alfred, it's like looking into a mirror.

Alfred returns to a silent house.

Perfect as ever, Alfred thinks as he walks in to see England, back straight against the wall with a a messy red stain - not unlike the smears of a body dragged across pavement - marring the white wall behind his body. A shattered light bulb a bit away from him and the thick stink of alcohol (whiskey, quite ironically) prove the existence of a makeshift Molotov cocktail.

"I gotta hand it to ya, babe," muses Alfred with a wide grin that doesn't reach his eyes. "You really are persistent."

He picks up England's body. The face is untouched, but in the throat and chest, bits of glass and fire tore and seared at his skin; Alfred carries him to the kitchen table and sets him down, reaching for one of the knives on the countertop.

"Always trying to leave me..."

He stabs into England's chest and yanks the knife down, ripping the white shirt and sending spurts of blood all over.

"But I love you so much more than that French bastard..."

He pushes the knife right into England's throat, into the skin he kissed so many times before and never bored of.

"You never believed me, did you?"

Before he knows what he's doing, Alfred's pulled out the gun in his pocket and pressed it to his head, cold tears dripping down his face.

"Maybe you did."

He pulls the trigger.

Two hours later, his eyes slide open. Alfred's congealed blood sticks to his suit; as he stands, his eyes focus on the mutilated corpse on the table.

He reaches for another knife and stabs it into England's thigh, and then presses the gun back to his own temple. No matter how many times he kills himself, his country is too large - too essential to the rest of the world - and he knows he won't ever die. He'll keep waking up, keep seeing that beautiful body lying on the table, keep shooting himself -

- bang -

- and nobody else would call Arthur beautiful, but nobody else is quite like him.

Albion can't understand why his his siblings cover the weird pale freckles on his thighs and hips, why he has to cover the strange violet birthmark on his throat, why Matthew's eyes always look so sad and so distant.

He can't understand why France always seems so longing.

He can't understand why he isn't allowed to see the United States.

Albion fidgets.

"Alfred?"

"Hmm?"

"You won't ever leave me, right?"

The United States smiles.

"Of course not."